Later diagnosis of children with Wilms tumours in the UK leads to lower survival chances

Children in the UK and Republic of Ireland who are diagnosed with Wilms tumour - the most common children's kidney cancer - are less likely to survive without relapse than those in Germany and France due to later diagnosis, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The study, published in JCO Global Oncology , compared tumour size and stage of cancer at diagnosis with survival chances of 3,176 children with Wilms tumour. All the children were treated as part of an international clinical trial* that used a standardised treatment approach between 2002 and 2011. This included 636 in the UK and Republic of Ireland (ROI), 786 in Germany and 687 in France. The study found that 57.7% of children were caught in the early stage** in the UK and ROI, with the remaining 42.3% diagnosed at the late stage**. Of these, a fifth of cases (18.2%) were at stage 4 - meaning the cancer has spread - when discovered. Comparatively, nearly three quarters (71.1%) of children in Germany and 61.7% in France were diagnosed with early-stage tumours **.